Exploring Planet Earth

"True appreciation of landscape comes only when one is alive to both its beauty and its meaning."

- Fritiof Fryxell

This class covers the ongoing processes that shaped the planet in the past and continue to this day. It explores the processes that form rocks and subsequently deform or destroy them, creating the landscapes we live in and the Earth materials we rely on. This class will change the way you look at the world around you, helping you understand why it looks the way it does. Topics we cover include:

• Active tectonics

• Orogeny (mountain building)

• Minerals

• Igneous processes and volcanoes

• Weathering and sediment formation

• Landslides and other mass movements

• Sedimentary Rocks

• Metamorphism

• Mineral resources

• Earthquakes

• Structural geology and rock deformation

• Aging rocks

• Geologic Time

• Fluvial and glacial geomorphology

• Groundwater

• Climate Change

This class is offered every semester.

Catalog Description:

A lecture- and laboratory-based course covering fundamental geologic concepts of plate tectonics, formation of rocks and minerals, earth forces that cause earthquakes and volcanoes, and the significance of geologic time in effecting changes in the distribution of continents and oceans. The laboratory experience reinforces and applies concepts discussed during lecture, including effective use of topographic and geologic maps, identification of common rocks and minerals, and three-dimensional interpretation of rock structures, such as folds and faults. The course consists of three hours lecture, three hours lab per week, and one full-day mandatory field activity.

Sample Syllabus

Click here for a sample syllabus.